4 ms·
Ask PG: Essay Editing?
PG has often emphasized the importance of editing and rewriting his essays. I was curious if he would be willing to post copies of some particular essay at various stages of editing. I would be really interested to see the progression.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- cperciva 19y agoWould you want people reading your half-baked essays? I know "I'd be embarrassed to let anyone see this as it is right now" is the most common reason I have for not making code open source -- I wouldn't be surprised at all if PG, for exactly the same reason, didn't want to publish early drafts of his essays.
- ferdinand 19y agoActually, this would make a great essay in itself, wouldn't it?
- sheriff 19y agoI've found that there's typically more benefit to be had from sharing an idea, than there is from hoarding it and believing you can perfect it on your own. When I've done the former, it's been way less painful than I imagined, and when I've done the latter, the project has felt like it was stuck in tar (totally my fault).
- xenoterracide 19y agowhy not? I have done my best to let go of caring what people think of me or my work. I will stand behind it. If there is a problem and I fix it.
- kalid 19y agoI highly recommend Zinsser's "On Writing Well" (http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonfiction/dp/0060006641 http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonficti...). It has excellent advice & real examples of rough drafts.
- pg 19y agoA few years ago I looked at an early draft of an essay to see which text made it into the final version. I never published it at the time, because it seemed presumptuous to think anyone else would be interested. But since you ask, http://paulgraham.com/laundry.html http://paulgraham.com/laundry.html
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- iamwil 19y agoDo you find that you get better and faster at editing the essays, comparing the first essay to the most recent one? (I imagine so) Or it is something like a constant, but you just find ways to work around it? I find that writing is good practice to to get my thoughts down coherently. And with a blogging habit, I find I can do it with much more ease, but it still takes a long while to re-edit something.
- pg 19y agoYou get better at deletion. When you first start writing, it's hard to delete stuff because it cost you a lot of effort to write it. As you get more confident, you get more ruthless in that respect: "This is crap. Out with it." Editing is writing, however, and the hardest part of writing is thinking. I don't feel I've gotten much better at that.
- cousin_it 19y agoGood read, thanks! The draft seemed to me more living and personal, while the finished version is pure idea. I wonder if it's possible to keep the intimate tone when you're editing for clarity.
- pg 19y agoInteresting question. I think it would be hard. Maybe you could leave in occasional chatty bits to preserve that tone, at the cost of only a little extra length.
- 19y ago
- gm 19y agoYour question misses the point. Essay editing (and double-checking anything, for that matter) is about THINKING. Write something, then read, THINK, and improve. Repeat. No more changes on the last pass? You're done. (How many passes did this post take? Four. The secondary point of this post is to suggest making it a habit of double-checking everything you write)
- gloodnc 19y agoI see an anology with lazy or run-of-the-mill programmers. Does the popularity of boilerplate allow some people to feel a sense of accomplishment with shallow efforts of thought per LOC?
- hooande 19y agoAs I read this, I can't help but think that some very interesting things were cut out in editing. I almost wish I could see more unedited versions of pg's essays.